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Not trying to get into a "peeing contest" on this, but i totally know where you're coming from. In my previous career it was COMMON to be laid off, at least once in your career. My airline furloughed 250 of it's 500 pilot workforce, 125 of the 250 pilots who were still on property saw our wages cut significantly. Nothing had changed in us, I was a captain commanding an aircraft on one day, and the following morning I was once again sitting in the co-pilot seat apparently worth less than half the wage I was paid the day prior. What caused this? Poor corporate planning, an unstable economy, fluctuating fuel prices, potential terror risks, etc etc etc...It wasn't by the fault of the pilots, flight attendants, etc...but they're the ones who paid the price.
I was fortunate enough to NOT overextend myself prior to the furlough...I had recently purchased a house, but made sure I could afford it on approximately half my current wage, had purchased a car (might have over purchased there...but I love that car". I hung around the company for about six months, browsing for alternative employment before I was finally hired by someone else. I had to write out a massive check on the sale of my home, move cities, and change careers, but I was able to find a decent job, and a livable rate.
After making the move, I watched my wife search around for a job for months. She has bachelor and master's degrees. Graduated college with honors, no semester less than a 3.5, and a 3.8 overall GPA. But she went on interview, after interview, attempting to land a perfect job. Eventually, reality set in, and she realized that she would take ANY fulltime job she could come across...upon doing so, she was employed within weeks.
Jobs are out there, but people have to be willing to do what's necessary to get them. I'm not speaking to your friends, trust me. But many folks are unwilling to do anything extra to land a solid job, whether that means covering up tatoos, or making followup phone calls after the application is filed.
Also, for every friend that I have who's lost their job, i know an equal number who are working two jobs to make ends meet, plus others who have turned down full time employment for part time so they can continue to collect unemployment benefits.
Personally, I believe that if the unemployment benefits were only paid for say six months, people would be forced to go back to work, which might be more beneficial for the country than having those same individuals sit on unemployment for two years, and instead of turning in resume's they're sitting in Keener Plaza complaining about not having jobs.
^ Not trying to get into a peeing contest either. I agree somewhat about the unemployment benefits, however, when one (or two) is the head of household in what used to be thought of as a stable career (research, etc.,) and you both get canned, the unemployment benefits are not supporting one's family.
I agree that one should do whatever it takes to bring the $ home. I just think you can't paint the OWS protesters as a bunch of whiny kids who haven't showered. There are professionals showing up, people from almost every social strata who are fed up with the corporate oligarchy taking over the government. Hell, the tea partiers, if they were truly about reducing the debt, would be right there. The TP'ers were no where to be found prior to 1/20/09.
Part of the issue is coming up with ways to reduce the debt. Most conservatives don't believe that you should simply tax the wealthy in order to reduce the debt, and if the plan is to create jobs that's really not the best plan.
I've watched the President harp on about corporate jet owners, and how they "fly around in their big corporate jet, while the rest of us are struggling to make ends meet". Considering that line of thinking effects my former colleagues on a daily basis, i find it suiting to comment about it. That executive, who is flying on the corporate jet is most likely doing so not because he has to act like a "big shot" but because time is money, and the quicker he can get a destination, the quicker he can get business done, and back on to more business. His corporate jet ownership (or timeshare depending on how "uber" wealthy the person is) will be creating jobs all the way to his business meeting. To name a few:
cleaning crews
catering staff
fuel personnel
pilots
dispatchers
meteorologists
air traffic controllers
mechanics
bankers
aircraft brokers
aircraft manufacturers
computer programmers
flight instructors
college professors
engineers
flight attendants
etc.
That list could go on and on, but that's just a basic example of what happens when a person singles out one group of people for political reasons.
Personally, i think the tax rate should go down and be simplified. A flat tax would be great, yes the rich will pay more taxes, just not proportionally more compared to total income. It seems perfectly fair to me, and means you pay more as you make more, but there's no punishment for being successful.
The best comment I was ever told when discussing taxes on the wealthy vs taxes on the poor or middle class was. "I've never been offered a job by a poor person."
What this boils down to is one problem, no matter if you're at the upper end or the lower end, corporation or individual, public sector or private sector: people (and the institutions they maintain) are overwhelmed by the need for instant gratification.
You can blame many of the unemployed for being lazy and not caring enough to pry their butts off the sofa.
But you can also blame corporations, wealthy individuals, and the government for taking the easy road for decades. The easy road puts small fixes on things to keep yourself out of trouble while ultimately causing more trouble down the road. It's death by a thousand paper cuts.
The government delays taking fiscal responsibility, placing a higher debt burden on future generations.
Corporate planning and strategy were mentioned earlier. My response to this is, "What corporate planning and strategy?". My line of work has put me into very close contact with a lot of Fortune 500s and senior levels (doing transaction advisory and tax planning work). Guess what? The most lucrative things done by many corporations (and most large corporations) today have nothing to do with market expansion, R&D, or long-term strategic thinking. The lucrative side is in getting a tax play as part of a restructuring (internally or through acquisition). Reduce your cash flow by $30 million a year but get a $600 million to a billion tax benefit? From an investor standpoint it is a no brainer. There is no long term because investors aren't interested in it and CEOs know they likely won't be around 10 years down the road anyway. The motiviation is short term profit at the expense of long term performance, because most CEOs are getting heat for what the stock price will do this quarter not 10 years down the road.
There were some interesting articles on this about a decade back w/ GM as an example. The smartest guys at GM used to be engineers and designers. That changed over time when GM forgot they were in the car business. They were more interested in coming up with finance/lease companies, income repatriation at a low tax rate, restructuring to trigger tax benefits, etc. There are long term financial consequences for dropping the ball. Not to pick on them, but this happens everywhere. Medicine: the hospitals and doctors aren't getting rich. It's the medical device, pharma, and insurance companies. We live in a screwed up world when the pretty face who was a mediocre student at a third rate university can peddle the latest antibiotic to your doctor (while barely even understanding what an antibiotic is)...all the while taking home a paycheck that is in many cases greater than your doctor's (net of the med school loans and malpractice insurance they pay). Apologies to pharmaceutical sales reps comfortably pulling in over 100K a year who can actually spell antibiotic who may read this, but long-term that money is better spent developing something else. Doctors take your pens and nod their head during your presentation. That's about it.
These types of things have long term consequences in terms of quality, productivity, innovation, accessibility, staying ahead of the curve, etc.
Education is the same way. A 4-year public school today runs 60-70% more adjusted for inflation than it did 15 years ago. Private ed costs increased 50 to 60% by the same measure over the same time. Considering that the median wage is pretty much flat adjusted for inflation over the same period, how many people are priced out of college today? If this trend continues another 15 years, how tiny will the pool of potential applicants to universities be? What happens to the pool of potential workers a decade or two out? Chancellors and provosts are more concerned about college rankings, recruitment yields, and amassing huge endowments than they are about accessibility of education 20 years down the road.
And last but not least, the 1%ers. They want the same favorable tax issues and capital access they've had because it is a wealth generator (for them). This again comes down to the long term impact this will have in terms of education, health, crime, and competitiveness down the road. And again, many don't care what the country will look like in 20 years because they won't be around to see it anyway. If those tax incentives and that capital access were used to generate jobs, then dandy. But they aren't. I've sat in board rooms and have seen it first hand. Some of it does create, but an awful lot (dare I say most) doesn't.
And this cycle is self perpetuating. Short term interests outweigh the long term, and people/institutions get progressively more desperate to cling to future short term interests...while the world gets more competitive around them. The 1% needs to figure out what they want to be the top 1% of: a country with a more skilled labor supply and generally healthier and happier citizenry (at the cost of some of that individual wealth)...or one where they continue their wealth trajectory and class tensions rise due to progressively worse conditions of the bottom 50-60% or so. You can be the king of your dominion holed up in a castle surrounded by serfs, or you can be the king of something greater.
I say this as someone who has been to one of these protests (not in the 'Lou), as someone who isn't a lazy unwashed schlub but as a person who has worked 80 hour weeks busting my chops dealing directly with decision makers these protests are targetting, and as someone who is comfortably in the 3 to 5%er category (but well outside of the 1%er group). The rationale for the protests aren't always well articulated, but there are some extremely valid reasons this is happening. Corporate types are out there going to these things too.
And what happens when you take just any job to survive?
Business X owner finds someone, extremely desperate, who luckily finds someone who will clean his office building for minimum wage, and he even brings along his own cleaning supplies. Yippy-I-Yo-Ky-Yay!
Business X owner is friends with another business owner who furnishes the supplies and pays his janitor, of 10 years, $9 an hour. Business X owner: Do you realize how desperate workers are today!!! Get rid of him, run an an ad on Craigs List, I'll tell you how lucky I got!!!
And down the slide we go to a 3rd world country status!!!
Can't blame those on unemployment for 2 years for that, who refuse to stoop that low and contribute to our decline!
and you'll understand why this is a real grassroots movement, not the astroturf Koch Bros. funded "tea party" BS.
I read it and didn't find it particularly compelling. I missed the memo on the tea party being funded by Koch Bros. Is that from Huffington Post or Daily Kos? I went to one of the first tea party rallies in St. Louis, outside of Claire McCaskil's office, and it was quite spontaneous.
^Not to be totally rude, but that's beyond old news, and has been covered by just about every mainstream media source including ABC News (who skews farther right than most others)
I also want to note, however, that I do believe many Tea Party activists are doing so on their own. But the evidence available makes it very clear that the Koch brothers had a huge impact on it being the national news story it has been for the last couple years.
Occupy Wall St. is a bunch of silly people who don't really understand how the financial industry works yet see it fit to blame them for all of the country's woes.
And what happens when you take just any job to survive?
Business X owner finds someone, extremely desperate, who luckily finds someone who will clean his office building for minimum wage, and he even brings along his own cleaning supplies. Yippy-I-Yo-Ky-Yay!
Business X owner is friends with another business owner who furnishes the supplies and pays his janitor, of 10 years, $9 an hour. Business X owner: Do you realize how desperate workers are today!!! Get rid of him, run an an ad on Craigs List, I'll tell you how lucky I got!!!
And down the slide we go to a 3rd world country status!!!
Can't blame those on unemployment for 2 years for that, who refuse to stoop that low and contribute to our decline!
Yeah, it's called supply and demand. If you don't want to "stoop that low" sorry.
Yeah, it's called supply and demand. If you don't want to "stoop that low" sorry.
I'm kinda with Snake on that, you can't artificially keep wages high for things that don't deserve high wages. If a company is wanting to pay their janitor $7.00/hr, and the individual is willing to work for that, so be it. If that person can get $10.00/hr as a janitor at a different company, they'll leave...If no one fills the now vacant janitor job, i bet the salary will increase.
From a business/cost perspective, "If I have a stack of resume's on my desk, i'm paying my people to much."
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